Joci Pápai

	Chart positions ; Explanation of the data
	Singles
	Origo

Joci Pápai (2017)

József "Joci" Pápai (born September 22, 1981 in Tata ) is a Roma - Hungarian singer .

Life

Joci Pápai was born in 1981 in Tata into a musical Roma family with three siblings and a music-making father. At the age of four he started playing guitar and writing songs on the intention of his older brother. At the age of seven he took part in his first music competition and gave his first concert before he was able to win numerous competitions while still in elementary school. Pápai was also active as a basketball player , but had to give it up for music because of time constraints. It was mainly influenced by the music of the 60s and 70s, rock music , pop music , soul and R&B .

Career

In 2001, when Pápai was around 20 years old, he took part in the Üstökös ( German Komet ) talent competition.

In 2005 he took part in the Hungarian music show Megasztár .

Immediately afterwards he signed a contract with the record label Magneoton and released his debut album. When he wasn't writing them himself, he had his songs composed by artists such as Zé Szabó , Viktor Rakonczai or Majka . He continued to work closely with the latter in the years that followed. After a five-year hiatus, he began to publish songs again in 2012.

In 2017 he took part in the A Dal . In the first round he was able to achieve second place behind Gigi Radics , a relative of Gergő Oláh , and thus made it to the semi-finals. He was able to win this before repeating it in the final. Therefore, he represented Hungary at the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 in Kiev with the Hungarian-language song Origo , which has strong elements of Roma music, but also has a rapped part and which was written by Pápai himself. It reached number 8.

In 2019 he took part in the A Dal again with his song Az én apám . In the first round he reached second place. In the semifinals and in the final he took first place and represented Hungary at the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 in Tel Aviv. However, he failed to qualify for the final of the competition. Hungary was eliminated in the semi-finals for the first time since returning in 2011.